In a significant decision for the construction industry, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously held in Clearfield County v. Transystems Corporation[1] that government entities cannot invoke nullum tempus to revive claims extinguished by Pennsylvania’s 12-year construction statute of repose.
The case arose after contractors renovating a Clearfield County jail in 2021 discovered that the building’s original roof, installed in 1981, had never been attached to the masonry walls. Instead, it had rested unsecured on top of the structure for decades. The county spent $3.8 million to correct the defect and sued the original architect and contractors for negligence, fraud, and breach of contract.
The county faced a significant hurdle: Pennsylvania law bars construction defect claims brought more than 12 years after a project’s completion.[2] Because the jail was completed in 1981 and the lawsuit was filed in 2023, the claims came decades too late.
To avoid that result, the county invoked nullum tempus occurrit regi—"no time runs against the king"—a common-law doctrine that can shield government entities from statutes of limitations. The doctrine rests on the principle that public officials acting on the public’s behalf should not forfeit legal rights because of delay.
The Supreme Court declined to extend that protection to statutes of repose. It emphasized a critical distinction: statutes of limitations bar a remedy, while statutes of repose extinguish the cause of action itself and are not subject to tolling. Allowing nullum tempus to override that cutoff, the court explained, would upset the legislature’s deliberate policy choice to protect architects, engineers, and contractors from indefinite liability.
The unanimous ruling is an important win for the construction industry because it preserves the legislature’s firm 12-year cutoff for both private and public construction claims. Had the county prevailed, architects, engineers, and contractors could have faced open-ended liability stretching decades—or even generations—beyond project completion.
With this issue resolved, attention now turns to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s forthcoming decision in Aloia v. Diament, where the plaintiff argues that the construction statute of repose applies only if the work complied with applicable building codes.